BAFTA Live! TapeDelay-Blogging

Nathaniel: Hey, kids. It's probably not sane to "tape-delay" blog the BAFTAs -- you probably already know who one, actually -- but this blog isn't exactly of sound mind during awards season (or, ahem, otherwise). I haven't heard about the winners yet. The second I opened a browser I sensed spoilers from all corners so I had to look away. Why doesn't the BBC-America broadcast it live? It's not like anyone who cares wouldn't watch it in the afternoon on a Sunday. But if you've already heard who won on the internet wouldn't that cut down your desire to tune in and thus lower the ratings? I don't get it. So that they could rerun broadcass of nature documentary Life of Mammals? I don't really care about the sharpness of a squirrel's front teeth or how kangaroo rats (omg. idon'tevenknow whatthoseare and I DON'T WANT TO KNOW) store their seeds. Especially not when movie stars are afoot. Someone get me a BBC executive on the phone!

I've also invited txtcritic, who liveblogged the SAGs for me when I was at Sundance, to join me for this event.

"I was hoping for a bigger laugh"

txtcritic: this is already dreadful.

Nathaniel: Whenever they do these collages of best moments from the year, why are they always the films that aren't nominated that get all the time? If they're so great, nominate them!

txtcritic: because clearly the most memorable movie moments of the year were featured in "Nine," "The Men Who Stare at Goats," "The Boat That Rocked" and "Coco Before Chanel."

txtcritic: Yaaaaay! "Moon" finally wins something!

Colin Firth presents an early award to Duncan Jones

Nathaniel: And that'd be the Best Debut Something Or Other. That's actually the title of the category. It was very schizo. The internet film community has been rooting for David Bowie's little boy all grown up (writer/director Duncan Jones) all year so a million facebook statuses just changed simultaneously.

I'm guessing.

txtcritic: If they play this "I See You" song every time "Avatar" wins an award tonight, I might not make it through the evening. Christ almighty.

Nathaniel: Sixty percent of the people in my apartment watching this awards show right now have NOT seen this movie yet. Where am I? Who am I?

txtcritic: They're showing clips from behind-the-scenes of "Avatar," and watching Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana having to seriously act with emotions while wearing these contraptions and dots all over themselves makes me genuinely impressed that they can get a line of dialogue out without cracking up.

txtcritic: Okay, I'll say it: Christoph Waltz is super eloquent, but I have trouble staying awake through his sentences.

Nathaniel: But they aren't run on sentences. Suck it up, man. I'm actually so impressed that he keeps coming up with new things to say. Remember when Jamie Foxx gave the same exact speech "My Grandma! RESPONSE AND CALL" 27 times in 2004/2005

Costume Design goes to Sandy Powell for The Young Victoria. I just interviewed her and I'll share more of that very soon.

Matthew So-Goode is on screen. Everyone just gasped. The Young Victoria took makeup.

txtcritic: well, judging by how the evening is going so far, "The Young Victoria" is clearly going to win Picture, Director, Actress, Editing, Adapted Screenplay and Visual Effects.

Nathaniel: Mo'Nique takes Supporting Actress. Weirdly Matt Dillon, who must not have been paying attention during this awards season, had to look at a card to introduce Lee Daniels, the director. He accepted for her. We're not sure why since he said virtually nothing other than making a joke about The Hurt Locker not having actresses in it.

Rupert Everett is announcing "Best British Film" . I don't care what anyone says -- including people in this room -- I love him. Even if you think he's an egotistical ass in interviews, at least he gives good quote. Down with celebrities who don't have anything quotable to say!

Rupert looking good after some weird face moments last year.

With both he and Colin Firth there it's like an Another Country reunion. Wow... the prize went to Fish Tank.

txtcritic: Ew, "Fish Tank." This should've been "In the Loop," by far. I honestly don't get what the appeal of "Fish Tank" is. It's just another familiar slice-of-horrible-life movie that doesn't say anything new or engaging. Please explain it to me.

Nathaniel: I can't because my screener was damaged. I need to buy a ticket. Also: I want to go back to something you said to me about Colin Firth. That A Single Man was to him what Rachel Getting Married was to Anne Hathaway: a movie that made you reconsider and totally love the actor in question who you didn't care about before. I'd love to hear which actors that the readers have had this experience with. TELL US.

txtcritic: the Orange Rising Start award, voted by *shudder* the public. I find it disturbing that Nicholas Hoult was nominated for one of the worst performances of last year -- he was basically auditioning to be a Ken doll. This will likely be Carey Mulligan, but deserves to be Tahar Rahim, who is unbelivable in "A Prophet." Jesse Eisenberg is adorable, but he's been "rising" for years now. Ew, gross, Kristin Stewart. I mean, I totally love and support her rocker-chick-aloof-lesbianism thing (even if she won't officially come out), but come the fuck on. I just looked at her IMDb filmography and she hasn't given ONE performance I would describe as better than serviceable.

Nathaniel: I've never heard the lesbian rumor. For her sake, I hope she IS a lesbian. At least that would make one interesting thing about her. I know I bag on Kristen a lot but I will say that the first time I've (almost) enjoyed her in a movie was in The Runaways in which she was playing a lesbian. Weirdly, she managed not to run her fingers through her hair. In other words: she should always wear wigs for future performances. For her that'd be like when people wear nasty tasting nail polish to stop the biting.

txtcritic: "Up in the Air" just won Best Adapted Screenplay, deservedly. Did the supposed Sheldon Turner / Jason Reitman feud flare up again? What in the hell is Reitman doing missing at these awards? What else is he doing?

Nathaniel: Maybe he's consoling Walter Kirn?

txtcritic: Walter Kirn is such a whiny bitch.

Nathaniel: "Experience the magic of Celtic Thunder." That might be the most amazing commercial I've ever seen. Hand me my phone and credit card.

Carey Mulligan, devoured by print fabrics

Nathaniel: A Prophet just won Best Foreign Film. Carey Mulligan, the presenter, seemed very happy about that win. txtcritic was also thrilled. Jacques Audiard had the BEST translator ever. She was hilarious. Translation with comic timing and attitude. What do we think is going to happen with Carey Mulligan? career-wise ... not Shia Labeouf wise.

Clive Owen, presenting Best Director, was just described as "smoother than a waxed otter". Um...

I'm trying to remember what Clive Owen looks like naked to decide if Jonathan Ross knows of what he speaks but I'm drawing a blank. Something is very wrong with me. I used to watch Close My Eyes on loop in college. Where has my memory gone?

Now Best Director goes to Kathryn Bigelow. We have no idea what her acceptance speech was. Especially the end.

And I just would like to dedicate this to never abandoning the need to find a resolution for peace.

Were those English sentences. No sense can be made of them.

UMA ALERT! --->

You know you're too far into awards season when you get the church giggles about microphone placement. But in our defense, UMA's breasts are so memorable that one always notices them.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship Award goes to Vanessa Redgrave. She is A-MAZ-ING. But you know, she's even less comprehensible than Kathryn Bigelow. Bizarrely incoherent, and I believe it approximated about 60% of the show. It ends with some sort of Shakespeare parallels.

txtcritic: I don't remember Shakespeare's Rosalind thanking the BAFTAs...


Nathaniel: Colin Firth wins Best Actor. He really was marvelous in A Single Man as many readers seem to agree (see the Best Actor poll)

Nathaniel: Mr. Mickey Rourke to present Best Actress. "Do you want this bareback or with a raincoat" WTF

txtcritic: AMAZING. Mickey Rourke just threatened to cum inside whoever wins Best Actress.

...and it's the wildly overrated Carey Mulligan. Thankfully Ms. Bullock wasn't nominated. The adorable, young, pretty, pixieish waif will be the one taking the Rourke load.

Nathaniel: Vile. This is a PG rated blog. PG-13 when we let loose. How is Carey "wildly overrated" when Sandra Bullock exists?

txtcritic: Because, even though she's winning undeserved awards, nobody is shouting ejaculatory praise about Ms. Bullock. Meanwhile, people are raving about Mulligan's "transcendant," "maginificent," "star-is-born" performance as if it's more than her just being adorable, and male critics wanting to screw her.

Nathaniel: male critics and Mickey Rourke apparently.

Nathaniel: On to Best Picture with Dustin Hoffman presenting. Did we like him in Last Chance Harvey? Readers?

txtcritic: I liked him quite a bit in that charming-if-forgettable movie. "The Hurt Locker" wins, and Mark Boal just called his earlier speech "uncharacteristically inarticulate." Arrogant much? Either way, Boal and Bigelow make an extremely hot/sexy "we can't announce we're official until after awards season is over" couple.

Nathaniel: There's a reason we keep calling it The Sexy Locker.


That Oscar for Best Picture is looking more and more secure. At this point, it doesn't feel like a two horse race to me. But some other sports metaphor. What?

BAFTA is over anyway. What did y'all think of the show?
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Link it On

Risky Biz Young Victoria finally has a distributor (Apparition -- see previous post) but audiences just aren't going for costume dramas these days.
Cinematical good piece on contrasting trailers before the movie... and how much mainstream auds love baaaaad movies like Wild Hogs)
Erik Lundegaard on Stephen Sommers (GI Joe "director") and the 'courage of his cliches'.


Fin de Cinema oooh, pretty posters for Toronto and Venice films
My New Plaid Pants shares one of the best cinephile dreams I've ever heard. Every night I hope to dream about movies but I rarely do
She Knows is hosting a contest to win a Kindle. It's in promotion of a new supernatural-powered book called Seven Rays from the screenwriter of Bring it On therefore I love it already. Maybe. Okay I'm not quite that easy
Us Magazine unleashes that 11 year old video of Channing Tatum stripping the night away. But why release it if you're gonna edit / censor it? Not that I'm pervy for the Tatum and wanted to see everything. I have no feelings on this one way or the other. I am a completely neutral party, Channing Tatum means nothing to me


off cinema
TransGriot has a great piece on the racist self-defeating fears of these looney people attacking any efforts at reform in our country
Boy Culture also chimes in on the health care debate -- great post
pop hangover best reason to drive a Prius. Hee

anyway...
Enjoy this Coen Bros picture short making the rounds today on the web. It was for an omnibus film but it's never shown up on DVDs. So here it is. Starring Josh Brolin as well it should.

Red Carpet Lineup

Post Oscars the the crowds are smaller but red carpets never stopped being walked on. So here we go with this week's sampling.


Maribel Verdú would like to know what it is with French actresses and The Film Experience. How about some attention for the Spanish ladies? Rupert Friend and Keira Knightley attended the opening of his film The Young Victoria (previous post). Rupert will be the love of Michelle Pfeiffer and Emily Blunt's lives this year onscreen. Offscreen he's still Keira's. They make such a beautiful couple but they're both so angular one wonders if they keep gauze and surgical tape on their nightstands just as a precaution. Cheekbones that kill.

Breaking news: Charlize Theron still hot, still knows it. Can we please have more Carla Gugino and Miranda Richardson onscreen? Come on agents, casting directors, producers etcetera. Use them (We discussed Miranda earlier). More on Carla next week since Watchmen opens today. She's playing Silk Spectre, the first. Speaking of... Malin Akerman is smirking at me. 'You can try to shove me off to the side Nathaniel but I'm coming for you. After Watchmen, I'll be everywhere. Like Megan Fox all over again.' I'm not quite ready to say uncle. We'll see how she does as Silk Spectre II. Was it just me or did Malik sort of blow that bitchtastic opportunity she had in 27 Dresses by playing it safe? That movie needed a dose of over the top villainy to give it some flavor.

We'll end with the stars of the sibling ex-con drama I've Loved You So Long, Elsa Zylberstein and the great Kristin Scott Thomas. They're pictured left at the Cesars (France's Oscars) last week. Elsa didn't ever get real traction for the supporting race here at the Oscars but in France she won the statue. Kristin was nominated for lead actress (as were two other actresses we adore Sylvie Testud and Tilda Swinton) but lost to Yolande Moreau in Séraphine which is about the french painter Séraphine de Senlis. That biopic swept the Cesars winning seven prizes. It isn't only the American Academy that loves the epic period bios. I'd say to expect this to be France's submission for next year's Oscars but for the fact that France always has an enviable supply of dozens and dozens of valid contenders.

My interview with Kristin is now up!

Emily/Victoria and John/Johnny

Biography movies will never die! Run for cover.

The NY Post blog PopWrap gave me a little chortle titling this premiere photo to your left "Emily Blunt: Boob Watch". If you were Emily Blunt wouldn't you stare at it, too? She's delicious and knows it.

It seems like years ago when we first started talking about her star vehicle bio The Young Victoria -- oh, it was -- and now the film is opening in the UK tomorrow and has an official site and everything but still no news about a US release. Surely there's an audience here of some limited release size. Why no distributor? Julian Fellowes, the Gosford Park screenwriter, is certainly excited about it. He quipped to a crowd on the promotional circuit that he told his agent

“If I don’t write it, you die.”

Here's the trailer. It does look a little, hmmm, lightweight... even lighter than The Duchess so maybe it only has a costume design nomination in it (Hi, Sandy Powell!) but you never know. "Don't judge a movie by its trailer," Nathaniel shouts to no one in particular. Nathaniel even ignores him.



There's also a new trailer to Public Enemies which is also not entirely enticing though Michael Mann films are so reliant on sustained mood and machismotic* grit that trailers are tricky. It occurs to me watching this and writing that Oscar post yesterday that Johnny Depp, who gained enormous fame and fortune creating indelibly weird originals, has actually done more than his share of real life impersonations. John Dillinger, the famous gangster he plays in this film, is his sixth biographical portrayal. Seventh if you count Hunter S Thompson's fictional alter ego in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.



It seems odd that this film's stacked supporting cast o' names isn't featured more prominently in the trailer. For example: If you have Channing Tatum in your movie, why the hell aren't you bragging about it?

* I made that word up. Sorry, but it seemed appropriate.
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